Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.1 The term ethnocentrism was coined by William G. Sumner, upon observing the tendency for people to differentiate between the ingroup and others. He described it as often leading to pride, vanity, beliefs of one's own group's superiority, and contempt of outsiders.2 Anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski argued that any human science had to transcend the ethnocentrism of the scientist. Both urged anthropologists to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in order to overcome their ethnocentrism. Boas developed the principle of cultural relativism and Malinowski developed the theory of functionalism as guides for producing non-ethnocentric studies of different cultures. The books The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, by Malinowski, Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict and Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead (two of Boas's students) are classic examples of anti-ethnocentric anthropology.

In Precarious Life, Judith Butler discusses recognizing the Other in order to sustain the Self and the problems of not being able to identify the Other. Butler notes 'that identification always relies upon a difference that it seeks to overcome, and that its aim is accomplished only by reintroducing the difference it claims to have vanquished. The one with whom I identify is not me, and that 'not being me' is the condition of the identification. Otherwise, as Jacqueline Rose reminds us, 'identification collapses into identity, which spells the death of identification itself' (146).3 However, Butler's understanding of Self and Other is Eurocentric itself because she writes that one cannot recognize Self unless it is through the Other. Therefore, Self and Other are limited through a language of binary codes. Considering that language is essential to culture, individuals will know themselves through the result of language plus culture. Dichotomous language is embedded in English and similar languages; however, dichotomous language is not universal. Indeed, there are few dichotomies in many Indigenous and non-European languages (Battiste and Henderson 76).4 It is by looking into the language of a culture that one will be able to see oneself in relation to one's environment and one's place in the world.

People who are born into a particular culture and grow up absorbing the values and behaviors of the culture will develop patterns of thought reflecting the culture as normal.5 If people then experience other cultures that have different values and normal behaviors, they will find that the thought patterns appropriate to their birth culture and the meanings their birth culture attaches to behaviors are not appropriate for the new cultures. However, since people are accustomed to their birth culture, it can be difficult for them to see the behaviors of people from a different culture from the viewpoint of that culture rather than from their own.6 See also Afrocentrism American Exceptionalism Americentrism Consumer ethnocentrism Cross-cultural communication Cultural bias Cultural competence Cultural diversity Cultural relativism Endogamy Ethnic nationalism Ethnic nepotism Eurocentrism Indocentrism Intercultural communication principles Intercultural competence Nationalism Polycentrism Pseudospeciation Racism Relativism Sinocentrism Stereotype Supremacism Universalism in geography Xenocentrism References ^ Margaret L. Andersen, Howard Francis Taylor (2006). Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society. Thomson Wadsworth. ISBN 0534617166. http://books.google.com/?id=LP9bIrZ9xacC&pg=PA67.  ^ Sumner, W. G. Folkways. New York: Ginn, 1906. ^ Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004. ^ Battiste, Marie and James Youngblood Henderson. Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge. Saskatoon: Purich publishing, 2000. ^ Stanley S. Seidner, Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. Bruxelles: Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguisme, 1982. ^ Seidner, Ethnicity, Language, and Power..... Further reading Ankerl, G. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU PRESS, 2000, ISBN 2 88155 004 5 De Dreu, Carsten K. W., "Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 10, 2011. Reynolds, V., Falger, V., & Vine, I. (Eds.) (1987). The Sociobiology of Ethnocentrism. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Salter, F. K., ed. 2002. Risky Transactions. Trust, Kinship, and Ethnicity. Oxford and New York: Berghahn. Seidner, S. S.(1982). Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. Bruxelles: Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguisme. van den Berghe, P. L. (1981). The ethnic phenomenon. Westport, CT: Praeger. Martineau, H. (1838). "How to Observe Morals and manners". Charles Knight and Co., London. Wade, Nicholas, "Depth of the Kindness Hormone Appears to Know Some Bounds," New York Times, Jan. 10, 2011. External links Group Processes and Intergroup Relations v · d · eEthnicity related concepts clan · ethnic group · ethno-linguistic group · ethno-religious group · indigenous peoples · meta-ethnicity · minority group · nation · nationality · panethnicity · population · race · tribe ethnology Anthropology · Ethnobotany · Ethnogeology · Ethnography · Ethnolinguistics · Ethnomathematics · Ethnopoetics · Ethnotaxonomy · Ethnomusicology ethnic groups by region Africa (Arab League) · Americas (indigenous · Canada · USA · Central America · South America) · Asia (Central Asia · East Asia · Northern Asia · South Asia · Southeast Asia · West Asia) · Australia (indigenous) · Europe · Oceania (indigenous · European) identity and ethnogenesis cross-race effect · cultural assimilation · cultural identity · demonym · endonym · folk religion · imagined communities · lineage-bonded society · mores · nation-building · nation state · national language · national myth · origin myth · pantribal sodalities · tribal name · tribalism multiethnic society consociationalism · diaspora politics · dominant minority · ethnic interest group · ethnocracy · ethnopluralism · indigenous rights · minority rights · multinational state ideology and ethnic conflict cultural genocide · ethnic cleansing · ethnic nationalism · ethnic stereotype · ethnocentrism · ethnocide · genocide · indigenism · separatist movements · xenophobia